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Oh Yeah! MIDI Over Wi-Fi Gets Interesting On iPad, iPhone

MIDI over WiFi is getting interesting, as this video of Bassline on an iPhone and MoDrum on an iPad, running in sync, demonstrates.

With the latest update for MoDrum (v1.1) and BassLine (v3.2), Finger lets you tempo-sync apps on a multitasking device or sync several iOS devices with each other or your DAW. Finger says that they are the “first to fully exhaust the opportunities provided by Apple’s CoreMIDI API for iOS.”

Here’s a demo with multi-tasked syncing:

I’d be interested in what iOS musicians think of this and what other iOS developers have in the works for improved MIDI support.

Yep, this is great. I've gotten the MIDI sync shown there to work with several devices at a time, you can run both his apps synced on the same device at the same time, you don't need any computer in between, it's all really well thought out and executed. Get a few more apps working this way and we will instantly and painlessly be able to have multiple people playing multiple apps together, or just one guy playing a bunch of different stuff.

My apps will hopefully get there soon, I'm excited about it and working on it right now, and I know others are too. BassLine and MoDrum show the potential and have lead the way, really cool.

It goes to show that perfect MIDI sync is purely a programming issue, and nothing to do with whether or not CoreMIDI has bugs or OSX network MIDI doesn't hold a good clock or Ableton doesn't handle virtual MIDI drivers well or…….

I can only hope that the guys at FINGER will be willing to share their MIDI success so that the entire iOS MIDI community will benefit.

something to think about

There was suddenly all this software. If you weren’t musically inclined it made it possible for you to sound like a musician. That’s what has totally revolutionized the industry. This is not about going to music school or learning music theory, it’s about passion, experimentation and letting it go. But ultimately, I don’t think any particular form of technology is as revolutionary as the person using it.— Derrick May